Strategic realignment: ends, ways, and means in Iraq

Parameters, Winter, 2007 by Bruce J. Reider

The US Army is once again enamored with counterinsurgency operations. The Army's current emphasis on COIN is not limited to operations in Iraq. Professional military education is increasingly focused on COIN. For senior captains and majors attending intermediate level education, approximately 36 percent (201 of 555 hours) of the core curriculum focuses on COIN and related subjects. The average student also takes 40 hours of COIN-related electives. Add another 165 hours of exercises, and these officers receive 406 hours of COIN-related instruction. (8)

The Trinity: Ends, Ways, and Means

Clausewitz described the relationship of ends, ways, and means in terms of a "paradoxical trinity" which has been interpreted as the government, military, and people. The government is responsible for defining the desired political environment at the conclusion of conflict (the ends), the military is primarily responsible for developing the strategy (the ways), and the people, as represented by Congress, provide the will and resources (the means). The challenge is to achieve harmony among the ends, ways, and means. If any element of the trinity is out of balance success is jeopardized. There are those who would contend that this "strategic disconnect" is reflected by the situation in Iraq. The pivotal question is, could the political objectives have been accomplished and ends achieved with the given means if the right ways (strategy) were used? In his precis On War, Clausewitz differentiates between absolute war and limited war. Limited war can be defined by limited objectives or limited means. "Military strategy exists to serve political ends." (9) In other words, the ways must be adjusted to support the ends and not the other way around. The means constrain and shape the ways.

Clausewitz cautions, "No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it. The former is its political purpose, the latter its operational objective. This is the governing principle which will set its course, prescribe the scale of means and effort required, and make its influence felt down to the smallest operational detail." (10)

Ends

According to the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, the desired end-state is "Iraq with a constitutional representative government that respects civil rights and has security forces sufficient to maintain domestic order and keep Iraq from becoming a safe-haven for terrorists."" The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) analyzed the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq against what it described as six desirable characteristics (subdivided into 27 separate elements) of an effective strategy. The GAO report, Rebuilding Iraq: More Comprehensive National Strategy Needed to Help Achieve U.S. Goals, published in July 2006, said, "The desired end-state of the US strategy has remained unchanged since 2003, but the underlying assumptions have changed in response to changing security and economic conditions, calling into question the likelihood of achieving the desired end-state." (12) The end-state should be tempered and tailored against what can be achieved with the means America has the political will to expend.